‘I’ll Have What She’s Having…’

January 31, 2013

Here’s a great post I was hepped to via the great Dude Designs: Network 9‘s I’ll Have What She’s Having: Design Fads in Movie Posters – an analysis of the current state of Hollywood’s poster designs. Ignoring the fact that most of the now iconic work like Jaws or even E.T. actually were pretty unique and stood out like a sore thumb, there’s a trend to stick with a tried-and-true formula today. And seeing a selection of modern-day films collected in one place there’s really no doubt about it. Writer Nola Barackman sums it up perfectly:

The formulas work — a lot of these posters have produced huge hits. But we can’t help but feel that relying on these standards is a bit like choosing McDonalds. It’s there, it’s easy, but at the end of the day it’s unsatisfying. Why be cliche when you can be visionary?

It was a bit of a downer seeing the independent, “edgier” offerings resorting to the same formulaic approach, but then again I gotta admit that in dealing with various not-to-be-named record labels and clubs that some are actually as – if not even more – conservative than the mainstream culture they claim to be an alternative to. Anyway, it was a nice read. Check it out here.